In wireless multi-hop communication systems first and last nodes establish a wireless communication link through multiple intermediate communication nodes of a multi-hop communication system. The first node in a communication path may be denoted start node or source node and the last node in the communication path may be denoted destination node or end node. Hence, a communication path comprises a source (start) communication node, at least one intermediate communication node and a destination (end) communication node.
Furthermore, in modern wireless communication systems communication nodes often use a plurality of antenna elements to generate directional antenna gain. Directional antenna pattern is often termed as antenna beam or antenna beams, and the method is often referred to as beamforming in the art. Normally, antenna beams of a transmitter is used to aim towards the intended receiver and the antenna beams of a receiver is used to aim towards the intended transmitter in order to increase the reception quality of communication between communication nodes.
For a wireless multi-hop communication link between source node and destination node, the throughput will be impacted on how fast the antenna beams can be formed for each involved node in the communication path.
Hence, in a network comprising such multi-hop links, due to the user mobility and traffic variation spatially and temporally, there is need for fast beamforming of multiple communication nodes in order to obtain optimal network performance, such as link throughput, network capacity, energy efficiency, etc.